Isaiah 10:5-19
Evangelical Heritage Version
The Proud Assyrian Is God’s Instrument
5 Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger.
The club of my rage is in his hand!
6 I will send him against a godless nation
and against the people who anger me.
I will command him to take the plunder,
to seize the spoils,
and to tread them down like mud in the streets.
7 But he does not intend to do this.
This is not what he has in mind.
The intention of his heart is to destroy
and to cut off more than just a few nations.
8 This is what he says:
Aren’t all of my officials kings?
9 Isn’t Kalno like Carchemish?
Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?
Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?
10 Just as my hand has reached the kingdoms of those petty gods,
kingdoms whose images were greater than those
of Jerusalem and of Samaria,
11 just as I have done to Samaria and her petty gods,
will I not do the same to Jerusalem and her worthless idols?
12 But it will not happen that way. When the Lord has completed all of his work against Mount Zion and against Jerusalem, I[a] will bring punishment against the bloated fruit of[b] the willful heart of the king of Assyria and against the glare in his haughty eyes. 13 For he has said:
By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom,
for I have understanding.
I have abolished the borders of the peoples
and have plundered their treasures.
Like a mighty warrior I have brought down their inhabitants.[c]
14 My hand has found the riches of the peoples like eggs in a nest.
I have gathered all the earth the way one gathers abandoned eggs.
Not one of them flapped its wings
or opened its mouth or chirped.
15 Should an ax brag that it is better than the woodsman
who chops with it?
Should a saw think that it is greater than the one who saws with it?
That would be like a scepter waving the one who raised it up,
or like a club lifting up a person, who is not made of wood.
16 Therefore, the Lord, the Lord of Armies, will make
the sturdy Assyrians waste away,
and in place of their glory, he will light a fire, a blazing fire.
17 The Light of Israel will be a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour its thorns and its briers in a single day. 18 He will consume the splendor of its forest and of its fruitful field completely.[d] It will be like a sick man wasting away. 19 The remaining trees in its forest will be so few that a child could record their number.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Isaiah 10:12 Here there is a sudden shift from the third person he to the first person I. This is not unusual in Isaiah.
- Isaiah 10:12 Many English translations simply ignore the words translated the bloated fruit of.
- Isaiah 10:13 Or kings. The verbal form may be translated those who live there or those who are enthroned there.
- Isaiah 10:18 Literally both soul and flesh
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.